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Teachers in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape have blown the lid on a jobs-for-pals scandal that has seen qualified and experienced educators overlooked for top posts in favour of less experienced but well-connected candidates.
Earlier this year, teacher Gaynor Rittles went to the labour court in Port Elizabeth to challenge the appointment of another candidate as principal of St Theresa’s Primary School, a position she had applied for. This, after she was tipped off by one of the people who had sat on the panel that the successful candidate had performed so badly during the interview that the whole process was “laughable”.
The school governing body fired Rittles for disputing the outcome of the interviews for the principal’s post. She was only reinstated after she went to court to challenge the dismissal.
Lindiwe Doko, a veteran principal and award-winning educationist who sat on the interview panel for the principal’s post was the first to raise questions about the candidate chosen.
She is facing a departmental inquiry for being away from school to give evidence at Rittles’ labour court hearing. This despite the fact that she had been subpoenaed to do so.
In her labour court affidavit in support of Rittles, Doko said she had been an SA Democratic Teachers’ Union observer at the interviews for the principal’s post on September 17 2012, for which Rittles and two other candidates had been short-listed.
“After the interviews, I was asked to comment. I was informed that the score sheets reflected that [one of the candidates] had scored highest and was the number one candidate. I was astonished to note that … because he had performed so badly and I viewed his performance as a disaster. He was an extremely poor candidate who showed little knowledge of the physical resources that schools required and which I would have expected a prospective principal to be familiar with,” Doko said in court papers.
She said once she challenged the panel members, they “stared vacantly at me looking guilty.”
“The whole process was laughable,” said Doko.
“I castigated them and reminded them they should be honest if they were serious about building a proper school.”
“[A school governing body member] then said ‘tell her the truth’. It then came out that there was a distinct bias to ensure that [the one candidate who] scored the highest was awarded the post.”
Doko said one of the panel members, Benedict Nxoyi, had admitted the marking had been manipulated to ensure that the process favoured the successful candidate and this decision had been taken at an earlier secret meeting of the school governing body.
Nxoyi backed Doko’s claim in his affidavit to the court, saying he had not spoken out because he felt “intimidated” by school governing body members.
Rittles told City Press she had been fired by the school governing body when she returned to school in January 2013 after she had challenged the appointment of the principal. After losing an arbitration bid, she appealed against the decision at the labour court and was reinstated last year. However, she was only fully reinstated earlier this year after going back to the courts to force the school and the department to comply with the earlier ruling.
More than 10 Queenstown teachers interviewed by City Press this week raised concerns about placement procedures and the administration of school feeding scheme funds at schools in the Queenstown district. The scheme is headed by a district director who returned to office recently after being placed on suspension during an investigation into financial irregularities in the district.
Eastern Cape education spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani was reluctant to comment as the Rittles matter was before court.
But Pulumani said the department was “satisfied that the selection process for the post had been free and fair”.
“There was a panel that was fully established by the school governing body, which went through a normal recruitment process. Mrs Rittles went to arbitration and was unsuccessful. It is within her rights to explore all avenues. We are convinced the process of recruitment was free and fair.”
He said no charges had been laid against Doko
